And yet there was Jackie, crowding the screen in my private internal television, tossing her mane of perfect hair and smiling just for me with a gleam of intelligent amusement in her eyes, and for some maddening reason I liked it and I wanted to—
Wanted to what? Touch her, kiss her, whisper sweet nothings in her perfect shell-like ear? It was absurd, a cartoon picture, Dexter in Lust. Such things did not happen to our Dreadful Dark Scout. I was beyond the reach of mere mortal desire. I did not feel it, couldn’t feel it; I never had, didn’t want to—and whatever the thought of Jackie Forrest might be doing to me, I never would. This was no more than a Method-actor moment, a fleeting identification with the killer, a confusion of roles, almost certainly brought on because the process of digesting pork had taken all the blood away from my brain.
Whatever it really was, it didn’t matter. I was tired, and my poor undernourished brain was running away from me, down a path I didn’t like and could never walk. I could sit here grinding my teeth and worrying about it, or I could go to bed and hope that a good night’s sleep would send these disturbing, absurd thoughts back into the dark jungle where they belonged. Tomorrow was another day, and it was Saturday, a day for doing nothing, which was known to be a sovereign cure for what ails you.
I stood up and went to bed.
FIVE
I WOKE THE NEXT MORNING TO THE CLATTER OF PANS, AND THE smell of coffee and bacon floating down the hall from the kitchen. I started to lurch up out of bed, and then I remembered that it was Saturday, so I took a few extra lazy moments to loll in bed and enjoy the thought that I had nowhere to go and nothing to do and Rita was making me a wonderful breakfast anyway. I could just lie here snug and smug, secure in the knowledge that all was right with the world and this morning there were no dragons to slay. I had an entire day to devote to doing nothing—and even better, doing it without anyone following me around and taking notes on how I did it.
I lay in a partial doze, drifting on the pleasant stream of breakfast aromas and letting my mind wander willy-nilly, which was fine until it wandered back to the brief dream I’d had last night on the couch, and as the memory of Jackie Forrest’s face barged in again I jerked upright in bed, irritated. Why couldn’t she leave me alone?
All peace was gone; I got up, trudged into the bathroom, showered, dressed, and went to the kitchen table, hoping that breakfast would set me right again. Lily Anne was in her high chair, attacking some applesauce, and as I came in she kicked her feet and yelled out, “Dadoo!” which was her new name for me.
I stood beside her chair and tickled under her chin. “Lily-Willy,” I said, and she gurgled. I wiped the applesauce from my finger and sat at the table.
Rita turned around at the stove and smiled. “Dexter,” she said. “There’s coffee. Would you like some breakfast?”
“More than life itself,” I said, and seconds later I was staring down at a steaming mug of coffee and a stack of Rita’s French toast. I don’t know what she puts into it, but it tastes better than any other I’ve ever had, and after four pieces of the French toast, a slice of perfect, ripe cantaloupe, and three crisp strips of bacon, I pushed back from the table and poured a second cup of coffee, feeling like there might be some point to this short and painful existence after all.
I was halfway through my third cup before Cody and Astor made their appearance. They came in together, both of them grumpy and tousled from sleep. Cody wore Transformers pajamas, and Astor had on an overlarge T-shirt bearing a picture of what appeared to be a platypus, and they collapsed onto their chairs as if somebody had stolen all their bones. Cody tore into the French toast without a word, apparently still half asleep, but Astor stared at her plate as if it was loaded with grub worms.
“I’ll get fat if I eat this stuff,” she said.
“Then don’t eat it,” Rita said cheerfully.
“But I’m hungry,” Astor whined.
“Would you like a yogurt instead?” Rita said.
Astor hissed. “I hate yogurt.”
“Then eat your French toast,” Rita told her. “Or go hungry. Whatever you want. But stop whining, all right?”
“I’m not whining,” Astor whined, but Rita ignored her and turned back to the stove. Astor stared at her back with a look of venomous contempt. “This family is so lame,” she muttered, but she began to pick at her food, and as I sipped the last of my coffee she somehow forced herself to eat all of it and take seconds.
I had almost slid back into a more alert version of the contented state I’d been in when I woke up, when Rita jolted me out of my reverie. “Finish up, everybody,” she said happily. “We have an awful lot to do today.”
It seemed like an ominous pronouncement. A lot to do? Like what? I tried to recall whether I had seen a lengthy list of tasks to perform—tasks so urgent that they could invade and conquer a Saturday I had hoped to dedicate to loafing. Nothing came to mind, and no list appeared. Rita was clearly so focused on whatever the jobs might be that she assumed we could all get our instructions from her telepathically. Perhaps my psychic antenna had blown down, but I had no idea at all what I was supposed to prepare for, and it seemed a little bit churlish to ask.
Luckily, Astor was not quite so shy. “I wanna go to the mall,” she said. “Why do I have to do stupid chores with you guys?”
“You’re too young to go to the mall,” Rita said. “And anyway—”
“I’m almost twelve,” Astor interrupted with a hiss, making “twelve” sound like an age so advanced that it required regular geriatric care.
“Well, that may seem old enough to you,” Rita said. “But the first sign of maturity is— Cody, stop drumming on the table. Go get dressed—and wear old clothes.”
“I only have old clothes,” Cody said in his too-quiet voice.
“Why can’t I ever just do what I want to do?!” Astor demanded, and Lily Anne began to shout, “Wanna wanna wanna,” pounding her tray rhythmically with her spoon.
“Because you are part of this family, and we all have to— Dexter, can you make the baby stop that?”
“I don’t want to be part of a family,” Astor said.
“Well,” Rita told her, pushing back from the table and grabbing at the dirty dishes, “if you can think of a better way to get your Own Room in a New House— Dexter, please, Lily Anne’s noise is giving me a headache.”
“It’s not a new house,” Astor grumbled, but she was clearly winding down at the thought of her Own Room. The only real enthusiasm I had seen from her recently had been when she was thinking about moving to the new house, where she would have private and personal space for the first time—but, of course, she couldn’t just cave in and admit that she was excited.
“It’s new to us,” Rita said, “and it will seem even newer when we paint it and— Dexter, for God’s sake, please take the baby and get her dressed?”
I stood up and went to the high chair, where Lily Anne had moved into march time with her spoon-pounding. But as I approached, she raised both arms in the air and shouted, “Dadoo! Uppy uppy!” I unsnapped the chair’s metal tray and lifted her up, and with the pure and heartfelt gratitude that only the very young can display, she smacked me on the nose with her spoon. “Dadoo!” she said happily, and as I stood holding her, with tears in my eyes and applesauce on my nose, I could think of nothing else to say but, “Ouch.”
Astor had dropped her complaints into a kind of background rumble as I carried Lily Anne away to the changing table. I was pleased that I had discovered what important tasks awaited me: “old clothes” for Cody and “paint it” to Astor. With my legendary powers of deduction it was the work of a mere moment to conclude that we were going to be working on the new house, most likely with rollers and brushes and buckets of pastel paint. It wasn’t the idle day of couch-warming I’d had in mind, but there are far worse fates than spending a day painting your very own new house.
I got Lily Anne cleaned and changed, and put her in the playpen. I washed the applesauc
e and related goo off myself, and re-dressed in some appropriately grubby clothes, and then loaded all the paint, brushes, and drop cloths stacked in the carport into the car.
Then I went back into the house and sat for half an hour, marveling at the chaotic din that ebbed and flowed through the house as the rest of my little family got ready. It was really remarkable how complicated they could make the simplest tasks: Astor couldn’t find old socks that matched and flew into a towering miff when I suggested it didn’t matter whether they matched, since she was just going to get paint on them. Then Cody appeared in a T-shirt with a picture of SpongeBob on it and Astor began to scream that it was hers and he better take it off right now, and they fought about whose shirt it was until Rita hurried in and solved it by taking SpongeBob and giving Cody an Avatar shirt, which he wouldn’t put on because he still liked Avatar and didn’t want to get paint on it. Then Astor appeared in a pair of shorts so small they might have been denim underwear and fought Rita for the right to wear what she wanted to wear for another ten minutes.
Cody finally came out and sat next to me, and the two of us waited in silent camaraderie and watched as Rita and Astor changed shoes, shirts, shorts, hair scrunchies, and hats, fighting every step of the way. By the time they were finally ready, I was so exhausted just from watching them that I wasn’t sure I could lift a paintbrush. But somehow, we all got into the car, and I drove us over to the new house.
It was a surprisingly peaceful day. Cody and Astor stayed in their separate rooms, slopping paint over almost everything, every now and then even getting some on the walls, where it was supposed to go. Rita painted the kitchen and then the dining room, running back and forth between roller strokes to supervise Cody and Astor, and Lily Anne stayed in her playpen in what would someday be our family room, yelling instructions.
I worked around the outside of the house, pulling weeds, painting trim, and discovering two fire ant nests the hard way, by stepping on them. I found a few other things even less pleasant—apparently there was a very big dog living in our new neighborhood. Luckily, there was a hose still hooked up to the side yard’s faucet.
At noon I drove out to Dixie Highway and picked up two large pizzas, one with just cheese and the other with double pepperoni, and we all sat in the screened enclosure by what would someday be our swimming pool, if we could figure out how to get all the green floating crud out of the water. Large chunks of the screen hung from the pool cage’s frame like Spanish moss, and several of the metal ribs were bent or missing, but it was all ours.
“Oh, my God,” Rita said, clutching a slice of cheese pizza and staring around her at her new kingdom. “This is going to be so …” She waved the pizza in a way that was intended to convey unlimited magnificence. “I mean, to have our own— Oh, Dexter, Carlene says her nephew has a pool service?”
“Carlene’s nephew is a lawyer,” I said. I remembered quite clearly meeting him at Rita’s office Christmas party, and coming home with three of his business cards.
“What?” Rita said. “Don’t be silly; why would a lawyer have a pool— Oh, you mean Danny.” She shook her head and took a bite of pizza. “Mmp. This is Mark. Danny’s younger brother.” She said it through a mouthful of pizza and still made it sound as if she was explaining shoelaces to someone with brain damage. “Anyway, he can get all the gunk out of the pool and make it totally— But we could save a lot of money if …” She took another bite of pizza, chewed, and swallowed. “I mean, it can’t be that hard. And we still have to get a new pool cage, which costs— But we can buy the chemicals at the pool store? If you don’t mind doing— Cody, you’ve got tomato all over your— Here, let me get that.” She leaned over to Cody and scrubbed at his face with a paper towel, while he scrunched up his eyes and looked annoyed.
“Anyway,” Rita said, leaning back away from Cody. “It would save some money. Which we will need for the new pool cage, because they are very pricey.”
“All right,” I said, not completely sure what I was agreeing to do.
Rita sighed and smiled happily. “Anyway,” she said again, and I had to agree.
It was five thirty when we decided we’d had enough. We cleaned our paintbrushes, and ourselves, as much as possible, and climbed into the car. I turned the air-conditioning to high for the drive home; we’d all been without for the whole day, since the power was not on yet in the new house, and even though it was a pleasant fall day, we were all sweaty.
The next day was a repeat of Saturday, except that we started an hour later, since it was, after all, Sunday. The only difference was that I got our lunch from a nearby Burger King. I found that I didn’t really mind the work. In fact, I slipped into a kind of Zen state of not-painting, letting the paint apply itself without any conscious effort on my part, and it was a great shock to me to see how much I’d done when we all knocked off for the day. I stood and looked at the vast expanse of newly painted house, and for the first time I began to feel a real sense of ownership. I walked around the whole house one time, letting it sink in that soon I would be living here. It was not at all a bad feeling.
And so Monday morning I arrived at work slightly stiff from all the physical labor, but remarkably cheerful in spite of it. I had gotten almost all of the paint out of my hair, off my hands, and out from under my fingernails, and I still had a sense of smug satisfaction with things that lasted all the way up to my desk, where I found Robert Chase sitting in my chair and eating a guava pastelito and slurping coffee from my personal mug. A large white pastry box sat on the desk in front of him. There were two big Styrofoam cups with lids beside the box, which made me realize with a bright flash of irritation that he’d used my mug merely because it was mine and he was starting out the new week by being Me.
“Hey, Dexter,” he said with a jolly smirk. “How was the weekend?”
“Very nice,” I said, sliding into the ratty folding chair I keep for visitors.
“Great, super,” he said. “Hung out with the kids? Playground and so on? Push ’em on the swings …?”
I looked at him sitting there at my desk, in my chair, drinking from my mug, and I discovered that I did not want to have a pleasant chat with someone who was working so hard to become me. But what I really wanted to do with him required a little more privacy than we had here in the heart of police headquarters, as well as a long stretch of uninterrupted time and a few rolls of duct tape. But of course, someone at the network might miss Robert sooner or later, and so the realities of civilized discourse left me no choice except to play the game properly. So I reached across the desk—my desk—and grabbed a pastelito from the box.
“All work and no play,” I said, taking a bite of the pastry. “I’m afraid it was very dull.”
“No, no, not at all,” Robert said. “I mean, spending time with your kids, that’s … You know. It’s important.”
“I guess it is,” I said, and I took another bite. It was pretty good. “And you?” I said, out of mere politeness. “How was your weekend?”
“Oh,” he said, and shrugged. “I flew down to Mexico.”
“Really,” I said. “And you lived?”
He sipped coffee—from my mug!—and looked away. “It’s, uh,” he said. “I go there all the time. There’s a place where, you know.” He sipped again. “It’s a, um. Kind of a private resort. They know me there, and I can just, um. Relax. No biggie. So,” he said, slapping the desk and turning back to me with a bright smile. “What’d you do with your kids? You said there’s three of ’em?”
I looked at him sitting there at my desk, and clearly trying very hard to pretend he was interested in my little life—at the same time underplaying the whole idea that he was the kind of guy who flew to Mexico for the weekend and it was no biggie. And because I really was starting to dislike him a lot, I decided not to let him.
“Wow,” I said. “That must be expensive. Airline tickets on a whim—and you would have to fly first-class, wouldn’t you? I mean, just so nobody would bother you. So t
hat’s probably, what. A couple of thousand dollars? And then a private resort? I’ve never even heard of such a thing. That can’t be cheap, either.”
He looked away again, and to my great delight he began to blush under his perfect tan. He cleared his throat and looked very uncomfortable. “That’s … that’s … you know,” he said. “The, uh, frequent-flier miles …” He waved his hand in a kind of spastic dismissal, unfortunately forgetting that he was still holding my coffee mug. A glob of coffee spattered onto my desk, and he gaped at it with his mouth hanging open a half inch or so. “Oh, shit,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He lurched up out of the chair and plunged past me through the door. “I’ll get some paper towels,” he said over his shoulder.
I watched him go for a second, marveling that such a truly awkward performance came so easily to such an apparently perfect man. It was so odd that for a moment I thought it had to be deliberate—perhaps a way to change the subject? Could he really be that uncomfortable talking about his affluent ways? Or was he hiding something even more nefarious than wealth?
But of course that was absurd. I was just being my normal, nasty, and suspicious self, seeing wickedness lurking in every shadow—even when there wasn’t actually a shadow. I pushed the thought away and stepped over to my desk to see whether any real damage had been done. The coffee had spilled right in the center of the blotter, which was lucky. One small tendril had splatted onto a file folder on the right-hand side, but only enough to leave a small stain on the outside, and not enough to soak through to the papers inside.
Robert hustled back clutching a fistful of paper towels, and I stepped away to let him blot up his mess, which he did with a jerky frenzy, the whole time muttering, “Sorry. Damn. I’m sorry.” It was a pathetic performance, almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. But of course, feeling sorry is not something I can actually do, and even if I could, I wouldn’t waste it on Robert. So I just stood and watched him, and for the most part I managed not to smirk.